Hi all. In my first post on this forums I decided to share with you my Astra review
Exactly a month ago I bought a 2009 Saturn Astra and I think I am ready to write a short review of the car. I was looking for a good looking 3-door hatch. The only other competitor was VW Rabbit but it turned out to be too expensive.
Important equipment:
- 8 airbags
- esp
- rainsense wipers
- cd player
- foglights
- power windows, power heated mirrors
- air condition
- cruise control
Exterior:
Judge yourself, here's a couple of pictures
And more...
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/9681/dscf0503.jpg
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8550/dscf0504v.jpg
http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/1809/dscf0505.jpg
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/4789/dscf0506.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3154/dscf0507t.jpg
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4495/dscf0508.jpg
In my opinion the exterior is very hot. The car gets a lot of looks, it's still quite rare on canadian roads so driving it is not like driving civic, corolla or even rabbit. It definitely has this unique, european look.
Interior:
Well, if you can't live without 4 cupholders in the front then this is not the car for you. The quality of assembly is very high, quality of plastic materials is also high (much better than civic and corolla). Styling is what I would call
"different", people either like it or don't like it. Seats are very comfortable, and have extremely good side support, leather interior gives the car luxury look and feel, noone who sat in the car believed that it cost only 23k otr. Things people don't like is unintuitive audio system and onboard computer steering. I do agree with that - it's not the easiest systems I have seen, but as long as you are not mentally challanged you should figure out the buttons in 5 minutes. Saturn also provided an additional book with instructions (with pictures, yay) as how to use audio and computer.
It's a 3 door car but accessing rear seats is not hard because doors are very wide and front seats can move all the way to the front when you fold the backrest. There is enough room at the back, traveling with 4 people onboard is not tiring for anybody. As for the cupholders, there is one behind the handbrake lever (you have to reach quite far for it), 2 smaller ones in the doors (small bottle of water fits in there) and 2 at the back hidden in the seat (it's possible for driver and front passanger to use it). Glove compartment is huge but overall number of clever spots for keeping your stuff is rather small. Having said that, I figured out how to use every possible place in the car to keep my cellphone, change, notes etc. so I cant complain.
Standard sound system is surprisingly good. I heard that advanced audio doesn't perform exceptionally well so I wouldn't pay extra 1000 bucks for it, I'd rather build some custom system. It's very easy to find a good driving position for the driver because you can adjust the steering wheel in all four directions.
Driving impressions:
If you finally get rid of people asking you questions about the car on the parking lot and you will drive the car the frist thing you will notice is how well this car corners. Driving it is such a pleasure,
everytime I am taking a ramp to the highway I can easily drive with a speed two times higher than the one suggested on the sign without feeling that the car will fall off the road in any second. I never got the tires to squeak on the corners.
The 1.8 enging pulls out 140 hp. It's not a lot but together with manual gearbox they can do quite surprising stuff. One time I was merging in on the third gear with speed of ~60 just off the ramp, I hit 130 on the same gear in no time. From what I heard automatic tranny is sluggish so stay away from it and learn to drive stick - it's not as hard as you'd imagine. The only bad thing about the manual tranny is that it could have 6 gears, travelling at 130km/hr is quite noisy as rpms hit 4000.
Fuel economy is not bad. Driving in the city gets me 8.5l/100km (exactly what Saturn says) and I'm driving usually in high traffic. One time I decided to be very gentle with the accelerator and I was getting 7.5/100km on average. Saturn says that Astra consumes 6.2l/100km on the highway and I do confirm that.
If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!
//I am Canadian so sorry for km/hr and l/100km :P, prices are in CAD